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Pristine Seas

The Pristine Seas team is currently exploring Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula.
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Pristine Seas joins the Blue Prosperity Coalition to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030.
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The Goal: Protect 20 of the Ocean's Wildest Places by 2020

The ocean. It covers 70 percent of the planet and shelters an incredible diversity of life. It gives us food, jobs, and more than half the oxygen we breathe. We swim and sail it, travel to be near it, and learn from it.

But we’re taking too many fish out of the ocean, polluting it, and making it warmer and more acidic. Yet less than five percent of it is protected.

National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala launched the Pristine Seas project in 2008 to explore and help save the last wild places in the ocean. These unique ecosystems are a window into the past, revealing what the ocean looked like before overfishing and pollution took their toll. It is essential that we let the world know that these places exist, that they are threatened, and that help is needed to protect them. Read more.

Monitoring and Enforcement Partner

Pristine Seas is partnering with Vulcan Technologies to ensure the long-term monitoring of marine protected areas, using Vulcan Technologies' cutting edge Skylight system. Surveillance and enforcement of these protected areas are critical to their sustainability and effectiveness in safeguarding marine ecosystems.

A Planet in Balance

See how you’re helping us create a healthier and more sustainable planet.